Installing A Second SATA Drive

I installed a Seagea Barracud LP, 1Tb HD. At first it seemed to work, considering the System kept asking for a driver. (Even in Device Manager).
After a few bootups, the AMI BIOS splash screen stopped at " Auto-detecting SATA 1", which is my main drive (witht he OS). Did a cold-boot. Booted up
with no problems. This scenario repeated itself a few days later.
But, this time, again, I tried the cold boot and got the "NTDLR is missing. Press CTRL+ALT+DELETE to restart (apparently looking for the Windows Loader). I followed this instruction. Got the same result.
On my machine, I'd press F8 for the bootup sequence, and press DELETE (when booting up ) to get into the BIOS. Couldn't get into BIOS. Neither
of these keys would work.
After disconnecting this HD, Windows booted up with no problem.
As an experiment, I tried reconnecting the Seagate. Did the same thing. Displaying the NTDLR messasge. Disconected the drive.
Either the drive is defective or there's a limiation on the drive size (in BIOS).
My System :
Windows XP Pro, 32-bit
ASUS AMN3A78-EM Motherboard
320Gb SATA II HD (main drive with OS)
3 Gb RAM
3.5" Floppy Drive
AMD Athlon II X2 240 2.8 Ghz Dual Core Processor
Sata Optical Drive
NOTE: On the MOBO, there are 4 SATA ports. 2 are used by the
Optical and Main drive
Any advice ?
garystan

 

I had a similar problem a few years ago. Based on what you've described, here are a few steps that may solve the problem:

Do you have SP2 or SP3 loaded in XP? If you're running SP1 or lower there may be issues recognizing a 1TB drive.

Try a different SATA cable. You might have a defective one on the new drive.

I am assuming your board supports SATA 2 (3.0 GB/s). If you have an older board that only supports SATA 1 (1.5 GB/s) you may have to place a jumper pin on the new drive. Seagate.com covers how to do this if required.

Check your board's manual or the ASUS website to see which SATA ports are channel 1 or channel 2 (there's a more technical term for this that I'm brain fading on, but you should get the idea). I can't explain why, but I've had the best luck placing a boot drive on the channel 1 and both the DVD/CD and secondary hard drive on channel 2.

Go to the ASUS website and check if there is a BIOS update available for your board.

Go into the CMOS/BIOS set up screen and check to see if the new drive shows up. If it doesn't, use the arrow down key to highlight the port its plugged into and see if you can force the board to recognize it manually.

Try the drive in a different PC if possible. If the problem repeats it may be a defective drive.

Hope this helps.

 

I'm 99+% sure I have SP3 in my System. I'll have to make sure first.
As for my board supporting SATA 2, i'm not sure how to check that.
When you mention SATA channel 1 or 2, are you referring to the
SATA ports on the MOBO ? As for the boot drive (which is utilized
in booting up), I don't think there's a problem there.
As for the BIOS update, I'd like to have a pro do that. If I did it
myself, I be leary in accidentally downloading and running the wrong
file (then the real *&#@ happens).
As for being a defective drive..............it seems to be a very good
posibility.
Thanks for your input.

garystan

 

The specs for the motherboard will tell you if it's SATA 1 or SATA 2 (if the board is under 3 years old, the odds are 99%+ it's SATA 2). If you don't have the instruction book, go to Asus.com to look up the specs.

If you're not sure how to do a BIOS upgrade, it is a good idea to have someone who's experienced do it - messing it up could damage the board.

For now, if you can, try the drive in a different PC - if the problem repeats it may be a defective drive.


Good luck.